The narrator meets an older man he calls Sensei while on a beach vacation in Kamakura.

The narrator finds Sensei at a Tokyo graveyard but Sensei refuses to explain whose grave he visits.

Shizu hints that Sensei's personality darkened after a university friend died under mysterious circumstances.

The narrator's mother writes to warn him that his father's kidney problems have seriously worsened.

The narrator completes his university thesis and receives his diploma at a graduation ceremony.

During a walk to a tree nursery, Sensei reveals he was swindled out of his inheritance by his uncle.

News of Emperor Meiji's death reaches the narrator's family home, devastating his already frail father.

A heavier-than-usual letter from Sensei arrives while the narrator sits at his father's bedside.

The narrator panics upon reading that Sensei believes he will soon be dead and catches a train to Tokyo.

Sensei's letter describes how both his parents died of typhoid and his uncle took control of the family estate.

Sensei describes moving to Tokyo, renting a room from a widow called Okusan, and falling in love with her daughter Ojosan.

Sensei invites his financially struggling friend K to live in Okusan's household to ease his difficulties.

K confesses his agonized love for Ojosan to Sensei, who says nothing about his own long-held feelings.

Sensei secretly visits Okusan and asks for her daughter's hand in marriage without telling K anything.

Sensei finds K dead by suicide; K's note cites only disillusion and hopelessness and does not blame Sensei.

The narrator meets an older man he calls Sensei on a beach vacation and forms an unlikely, intense friendship with the emotionally distant intellectual. As their bond deepens in Tokyo, hints of a dark secret emerge through Sensei's mysterious graveyard visits and his wife Shizu's careful observations. After graduating from university, the narrator returns to his dying father's side while an ominous letter from Sensei arrives, heavy with foreboding. Sensei's letter reveals the full story: orphaned and cheated by his uncle, Sensei moved to Tokyo, fell in love with his landlady's daughter Ojosan, and invited his troubled friend K into the household. When K confessed his own love for Ojosan, Sensei secretly secured her hand in marriage without telling K, and K later died by suicide. The letter is Sensei's farewell confession, and with it he announces that he too will soon be dead.

The central story of friendship, betrayal, and suicide.

The narrator carefully selects the right moment to introduce himself to Sensei at the Kamakura beach.

The narrator asks to accompany Sensei on graveyard visits, but Sensei firmly refuses to let anyone join him.

Sensei tells the narrator that he and his wife cannot have children, attributing this to divine punishment.

During a park walk, Sensei and the narrator discuss love and sin, but Sensei refuses to elaborate further.

While Sensei is out, the narrator sits with Shizu and hears her describe her husband's growing distaste for people.

The narrator borrows money from Sensei to cover the cost of traveling home to his sick father.

The narrator, Sensei, and Shizu share a celebratory dinner after graduation and discuss Sensei's habit of tidiness.

During the after-dinner conversation, Sensei and Shizu fall into a disagreement about which of them will die first.

The narrator arrives at his parents' home to find his father's health surprisingly unchanged despite his mother's warnings.

Plans for a graduation celebration are abandoned when news arrives of the Emperor's deteriorating health.

Just as the narrator prepares to leave for Tokyo, his father suddenly collapses in the garden.

Two contradictory telegrams arrive from Sensei — first summoning the narrator to Tokyo, then telling him not to come.

The narrator writes to his older brother and sister asking them to come to their dying father's bedside.

K secretly switches from studying medicine to studying religion, deceiving both his adoptive family and his birth family.

After K's death, Sensei drinks heavily and sinks into a deep depression he cannot shake for years.

After carefully introducing himself to Sensei on the beach, the narrator becomes woven into Sensei and Shizu's household life, observing their marriage and Sensei's philosophical cynicism firsthand. Through intimate conversations and shared meals, the narrator begins to sense the emotional weight both Sensei and Shizu carry, even without knowing its source. After graduation, domestic life reasserts itself as the narrator returns to his parents' home and watches his father's health decline alongside news of the Emperor's failing condition. A series of contradictory telegrams from Sensei leaves the narrator confused and helpless as his father collapses and family gathers around the deathbed. Within Sensei's letter, the story of K's passionate defiance of his family to pursue his true calling adds painful dimension to the tragedy of his eventual fate, and the aftermath of his death leaves Sensei broken and dependent on drink.

The supporting moments that shape the narrator's world.

The narrator notices Sensei visits the graveyard regularly but always refuses to bring his wife Shizu along.

Returning to Tokyo after visiting his sick father, the narrator hears Sensei speak somberly about death and unnatural violence.

After graduation the narrator feels directionless, and his parents urge him to ask Sensei for help finding a career.

The narrator's father grows obsessed with newspaper reports on the Emperor's failing health, identifying with the dying ruler.

The narrator's father slips into unconsciousness before the family can discuss inheritance plans with him.

The narrator's mother mistakes Sensei's arriving letter for a job offer, and the narrator is too embarrassed to correct her.

Reading the opening page of Sensei's heavy letter at his father's bedside, the narrator is gripped by sudden anxiety.

Sensei's uncle pressures him to marry his cousin; Sensei refuses, and the entire family turns cold and unwelcoming.

Sensei discovers that his uncle's once-failing business revived using money embezzled from his dead parents' estate.

A classmate teases Sensei for shopping alongside Okusan and Ojosan, causing Sensei to withdraw even further from his feelings.

Sensei and K travel to a fishing village together, after which Sensei becomes convinced that K is in love with Ojosan.

Sensei turns K's own spiritual principles against him, calling him a fool for surrendering to romantic love.

Sensei learns that Okusan already told K about the marriage proposal two days before Sensei could confess to his friend.

Sensei informs Okusan of K's death and together they clean K's body and send word to his relatives.

Inspired by General Nogi's ritual suicide, Sensei resolves to end his life and sends Shizu away to her aunt's house.

From early in their friendship, careful observation reveals the signs of Sensei's hidden grief — his solitary graveyard visits, his cryptic remarks about death, and his failure to celebrate the narrator's academic achievements. After graduation, the narrator returns to the countryside where the parallel decline of his father and the Emperor creates a foreboding atmosphere of unresolved inheritances and approaching endings. Sensei's letter arrives surrounded by misunderstanding — the narrator's mother takes it for a job offer, while the narrator reads its opening words with dread and anxiety. Inside the letter, Sensei traces every turning point that warped him: his uncle's cold manipulation, the humiliating teasing by a classmate, and K's devastating emotional confession. The final chain of betrayals — Sensei's secret proposal, Okusan's premature disclosure to K, and K's suicide — haunts Sensei for decades until General Nogi's ritual death gives him a model for his own exit from the world.